The Addams Family

This series follows a bizarre and scary-looking family called the Addams.

An extended family living in one house, the Addams have many bizarre and ghoulish interests, not to mention their rather odd assortment of “pets”. Despite their strange appearance, they are hospitable and kind, never letting their suspicions of “normal” people get in the way of their warmth and courtesy.
Gomez Addams (John Astin) – Gomez is a rich and passionate man, madly in love with his wife, Morticia. He calls her Cara Mia and Querida and his passion reaches even greater heights when she speaks French. He dresses formally in a pin-striped double-breasted suit with black tie, a watch with a long gold chain connected to the lapel of his jacket, and lit cigars in his breast pocket. A pair of thick-lensed reading glasses are kept in an inside pocket, ready to be produced at a moment’s notice. Occasionally, he appears less formally attired but his outfits – whether an old-fashioned striped bathing suit (for “moon bathing”) or a safari outfit – are never conventional. Money is unimportant to Gomez, perhaps because his ownership of stocks and companies means that he has plenty of it. He often refers to Spain as his “ancestral home” and every so often speaks briefly in Spanish. He is highly acrobatic, is into Zen Yoga (a mix of yoga and acrobatics) and can do complex mathematical calculations in his head. One of his favorite hobbies is to play with model trains, which he does with the assistance of dynamite and a hand detonator.

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Morticia Addams (Carolyn Jones) – Beautiful and sophisticated Morticia is the wife of Gomez and the mother of Wednesday and Pugsley. She wears a tight, floor-length, black v-neck dress with a hem that looks like octopus tentacles. Her only jewelry is a necklace and a ring with a large black stone covering a compartment that usually contains some sort of powder, most often saccharine or cyanide, which she uses to flavor the refreshments she serves to their guests. Morticia’s hobbies include playing the shamisen, dabbling in the world of art and her favorite, gardening. Of course, much like her husband and his unique way of playing with model trains, Morticia has her own special take when it comes to gardening. She grows man-eating plants and cuts the buds off her roses as she considers the thorns to be the beautiful part. She is able to light things with her fingertips – a handy talent when it comes to candles and cigarettes – and can emanate smoke from her body. Though less extravagantly expressed, her love for her husband is as intense as his for her.

Uncle Fester (Jackie Coogan) – Uncle Fester is Morticia’s strange-looking but kind uncle. He wears a plain, floor-length coat with a wide, fur-trimmed collar and is completely bald. He has a fondness for playing with blasting caps and dynamite and treats illnesses with “alternative medicine” such as lying on a bed of nails for relaxation, being tied up and stretched on a wooden rack, or putting his head into a large book press. Easily excitable, if a person angers him he’ll want to take his revenge with his weapon of choice, a blunderbuss (an early form of shotgun). Luckily, Gomez or Morticia are always on hand to prevent this from happening. In a family of unusual talents, Uncle Fester is the one you’d want around in a power cut – he can light a lightbulb by placing it in his mouth.

Lurch (Ted Cassidy) – Lurch is the family butler. He is tall, corpse-like and has an incredibly deep voice. Morticia and Gomez summon him by tugging on a bell pull that resembles a hangman’s noose, which in turn rings the enormous bell in the mansion’s bell tower. The resulting gong shakes the entire house. Lurch speaks rarely other than to utter his catchphrase “You rang?” the rest of the time confining himself to grunts. He is known for playing the harpsichord, has superhuman strength and, like Uncle Fester, stretches himself on the torture rack as a way of managing stress.

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Grandmama Addams (Blossom Rock) – Grandmama is a witch as well as Gomez’s mother. She has long, gray hair and usually wears a dark shawl. Known for her spells, hexes and potions, Grandmama is also a fortune teller, plays the bagpipes, dabbles in painting and wrestles alligators.

Wednesday Addams (Lisa Loring) – Wednesday is the daughter of Gomez and Morticia. She is very pale, usually wears black and has her hair in braids. Her hobbies are of the morbid variety, including raising spiders (her favorite spider is a black widow named Homer), painting macabre pictures, decapitating dolls and ballet, which she does in a black tutu. She rarely smiles, is incredibly strong and is close to the family butler, Lurch.

Pugsley Addams (Ken Weatherwax) – Pugsley is the son of Gomez and Morticia, and unlike the rest of the family occasionally conforms to more conventional standards. He has a pet octopus named Aristotle and, much like his father, enjoys playing with blasting caps. Despite being a little overweight, Pugsley is very acrobatic.

Trivia

The series was based on Charles Addams’s cartoons in the prestigious magazine The New Yorker.

John Astin (Gomez Addams) played the role of Grandpapa Addams in the very short-lived series The New Addams Family in the late 1990’s.

Gomez and Morticia Addams were one of American television’s most forward thinking couples. Not only was their family the first to own a home computer (UNIVAC), they were the first couple who were implied to have a sex life.

Carolyn Jones (Morticia Addams) dreamed of being an actress since she was a child. She fulfilled her wish of attending the famed Pasadena Playhouse when she was still in her teens and graduated three years later.

Because Gomez put lit cigars into his pockets, the prop department lined John Astin’s (Gomez) pockets with asbestos to make them fire resistant.

Jackie Coogan (Uncle Fester) was born into a family of vaudevillians and was acting on stage by the time he was four years old.

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John Astin has been married three times, including to actress Patty Duke with whom he had sons, actors Mackenzie Astin and (adopted son) Sean Astin. Duke insisted that Astin was Sean’s biological father for many years, but the claim was proven untrue when the two had a blood test in 1990. He also has three sons from his first marriage.

Ted Cassidy (Lurch) narrarated the opening credits of The Incredible Hulk series, as well as supplying the Hulk’s roars and growls for the first two seasons.

Cousin Itt was voiced by one of The Addams Family’s producers, Nat Perrin. Perrin would speak gobbledygook into a tape recorder and play it back at high speed in order to achieve Cousin Itt’s distinctive voice.

Blossom Rock, also known as Marie Blake, (Grandmama Addams) was the older sister of actress Jeanette MacDonald.

Carolyn Jones gave herself a makeover, including a painful nose job, in order to look perfect for movie roles.

Jackie Coogan acted with screen icon Charlie Chaplin when he was only a boy. Decades later, when Chaplin returned to the United States after an absence of 20 years, Coogan was one of the people on hand at the airport to greet him. Though he gave everyone else in the group a simple handshake, Chaplin gave Coogan a hearty embrace and said, “You know, I think I would rather see you than anybody else”. Coogan often said that this was his proudest moment.

Lisa Loring (Wednesday Addams) has been married four times. One of her former husbands, Paul David Siederman, is actually Jerry Butler, the famous porn star.

Ted Cassidy died at the age of 47 from complications following open-heart surgery. Cassidy’s live-in girlfriend at the time of his death had his remains cremated and buried in the backyard of their home. His house was later sold and demolished.

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The rival show to The Addams Family was The Munsters. Both shows began within a week of each other and both were cancelled after their second seasons.

Ken Weatherwax (Pugsley Addams) has worked as a set builder on movie lots for around the past decade.

Blossom Rock married only once, to Clarence Rock, and they stayed married until his death in 1960. They had no children.

John Astin graduated from Johns Hopkins University in 1952 and in addition to his acting roles currently teaches directing and method acting at his alma mater in the Theater Arts and Studies Department.

One of the sponsors of The Addams Family was Dutch Masters Cigars.

The Broadway musical version of The Addams Family, starring Nathan Lane and Bebe Neuwirth, debuted in April of 2010.

Ted Cassidy was living in Dallas, Texas and working as a disc jockey before his acting career took off. He was one of the first people to interview eyewitnesses W.E. Newman, Jr. and Gayle Newman on the day of the John F. Kennedy assassination.

Carolyn Jones was married to famed writer and producer Aaron Spelling early in her career. Though they later divorced, they remained friends.

Lisa Loring worked for two years on the daytime soap opera As the World Turns, where she created and played the role of Cricket Montgomery.

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When Jackie Coogan turned 21, he wanted the money that he had earned as a child actor. His mother and stepfather, Arthur Bernstein, refused to give it to him and had in any case already spent most of it on extravagances like diamonds and fur coats. Coogan filed a suit in order to get his money, approximately $4 million dollars, but at that time (back in the 1930’s) California law gave him no rights to any money he had made as a child. In the end, he received about $126,000. As a result of the huge public outcry about the case, the California Legislature passed the Child Actors Bill, also known as the Coogan Act. This required a trust fund to be established for any child actor to protect his or her earnings.
The interior of the Addams home was based on the interior of Charles Addams’s apartment and was filled with strange items such as an antique crossbow collection and suits of armor.

John Astin and Carolyn Jones both had roles in the series Batman.

When the series debuted, the character of Lurch was intended to be mute. However, in one episode actor Ted Cassidy (Lurch) ad-libbed what would turn out to be his most famous line, “You rang?” Because it got such a big laugh from the studio audience, Lurch began to get more dialogue.

The actor who played Uncle Fester, Jackie Coogan, was originally turned down for the part. He went home, shaved his head and did his own make-up and costume and ended up winning the role.

Ken Weatherwax joined the United States Army at the age of 17.

Gomez regularly wrecked model trains with a big collision and explosion, but the scene was actually only shot once with the same footage re-used each time.

Jackie Coogan was married to the legendary Betty Grable for three years.

John Astin has been involved in some way with more productions of The Addams Family than any other actor.

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Ted Cassidy was a towering 6 ft. 9 in. tall, which made him the perfect choice for many odd characters.

Blossom Rock died in 1978 at the age of 82.

Ken Weatherwax (Pugsley) was supposedly allergic to the wool costumes made by the show’s designers. His costumes were instead all bought by his mother.

The Addams family home mostly consisted of sets recycled from the 1964 movie The Unsinkable Molly Brown, starring Debbie Reynolds.
Carolyn Jones suffered from severe asthma as a child.

Jackie Coogan served in the United States Army during World War War II, returning to Hollywood afterwards. During his time in the army, he was the pilot of a CG-4A Waco, a wood and canvas transport glider.

Once the television series of The Addams Family began The New Yorker magazine stopped running any cartoons that were Addams Family-themed, until just before the death of Charles Addams in 1988.

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Although Charles Addams made few contributions to the series itself, he did come up with the character’s names (he had never given them names in his cartoons). He named all the characters within a week, except for Mr. Addams. In the end, John Astin was given a choice between the names Gomez or Repelli.

The part of Thing was usually played by the actor who also played Lurch, Ted Cassidy, except on those occasions when Lurch and Thing had to be on camera at the same time. When Cassidy would play the part, however, he would sometimes use his left hand instead of his right (Thing was usually a right hand) just to see if anyone would notice.

The man who wrote the theme song for The Addams Family, Vic Mizzy, also wrote the theme song for the popular series Green Acres.

Carolyn Jones wrote a novel called Twice Upon a Time.

John Astin (Gomez) was originally offered the role of Lurch, around whom the show was originally supposed to be centered, but did not feel that the part was right for him. According to Astin, when he told executive producer David Levy, Levy offered him the part of Gomez Addams instead and the focus of the series was changed.

After working as an actor from childhood, Lisa Loring left show business for about two decades from the early 90’s, returning to acting in 2011.

Ted Cassidy, who played Lurch, released a 45 rpm single called The Lurch, a dance song based on his character. He can be seen performing the song on a variety show called Shingdig! back in 1965.

Felix Silla, who played Cousin Itt, also played the robot in the series Buck Rogers in the 25th Century.

When Jackie Coogan was cast in The Addams Family, he was nearly broke. After the series ended, he never had a problem getting work again.

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Ken Weatherwax’s brother is Joey D. Vieira, also known as Donald Keeler, who played the role of Porky on TV’s Lassie for the first three seasons.

Two movies were made in the 1990’s based on the original series, The Addams Family and The Addams Family Values. The house that was used for the films cost $100,000 to build. The name of the baby in the second film, Pubert, was actually supposed to be the original name of Pugsley in the series, but was discarded as too sexual.

Only three members of the cast appeared in every episode of the series, Carolyn Jones, John Astin and Ted Cassidy.

Carolyn Jones was married four times but had no children.

Jackie Coogan, his father and his best friend were all in a car accident when Jackie was only 20 years old. Tragically, Jackie was the only survivor, losing both his father and his best friend within hours of each other.

John Astin’s father, Dr. Allen Astin, was the director of the National Bureau of Standards, now known as the National Institute of Standards and Technology.